LOVE, TRAGEDY AND HEROISM IN POPULAR LITARATURE
Popular books with brightly coloured pictures on
the covers to attract purchasers were a stock in trade of the pedlars
who used to travel through the towns and villages of Turkey. This
type of cheaply priced publication printed in lithography first
appeared in the mid-19th century and quickly became widespread.
After a new Latin alphabet was adopted in place of the Ottoman Turkish
alphabet based on Arabic script in 1928, sales of this type of book
- the best-sellers of their time - soared. Written in a simple,
flowing vernacular style for a literate but not highly educated
readership, these books mainly consisted of stories that appealed
to people of all ages. They included folk tales from the oral tradition,
summaries of oriental classics, adventure stories, love stories
and stories of holy wars.
Pedlars carried their diverse wares in canvas packs
slung across their chests and backs, their interior divided into
compartments.
And as if this were not enough their shoulders,
arms and necks were hung with strings of beads, buckles, mirrors,
fine chains, whistles, laundry pegs, bunches of hairpins, bags of
henna, alum and ginger, sewing thread and reels of cotton for lace.
They wandered from village to village, delighting children and girls
preparing their trousseaus, as well as readers of their selection
of cheap books with colourful covers depicting the heroes of the
story inside.
In the towns, too, pedlars offered their goods for
sale in the squares, railway stations and sidestreets, and could
sometimes even be seen wandering through the poorer districts of
big cities. They enticed customers by reciting quotations and lines
of poetry from the love stories in their packs, and when a prospective
customer asked about the story would summarise it with the dramatic
airs of a professional meddah (story teller), showing the pictures
in the book to illustrate it. Some pedlars specialised in books,
which they packed in large woollen bags carried by
their donkeys, and their collections were more varied, including catechisms,
prayer books and Korans.
In the mosque courtyards vendors of prayer beads, skullcaps, mest
(thin-soled boots for wearing indoors), tassels and religious manuals,
always had a stock of popular books in their boxes.
Today this type of popular book is rarely seen, and even secondhand
copies are hard to come by. At most 120 pages in length, the stories
were sometimes of the minstrel ballad genre, half in verse and half
in prose, and sometimes stories of ancient battles from the early
days of Islam. What characterised these books, and what was their
appeal?
Whether about heroism or love, they all derived from the centuries
old tradition of oral literature.
They were therefore entirely classical in approach, with no influences
from modern literature. The narrative style and conventions were
traditional, varying only in the degree of detail used by the different
writers in telling their stories. Many were summaries of oldfashioned
tales, sometimes illustrated by naïve pictures. For a love
story of more recent provenance to become the subject of a popular
book it had to have first been told and retold by the traditional
story tellers in the conventions of that genre. The same held for
adventure stories. For example, the story of the uprising of Çakircali
Mehmet Efe which took place around 1910 only found its way into
print in a popular book after years of repetition had transformed
it into the stuff of legend.
These books were read and listened to over and over again, and
the listeners would in their turn relate it to others. Why did this
repetition not bore people? These were often stories which people
had listened to their grandmothers tell them as children, and to
look at the pictures on the cover and on the pages while reading
or listening to them again was a moving experience. These seemingly
simple stories speaking of faith, loyalty, love, pity, joy, and
sorrow, had lessons and morals to give. For people who could neither
afford more intellectual literature, nor had the level of education
required to appreciate it, these books were a fount of worthy ideals
and emotions.
Popular books were printed in large quantities from the 1930s to
1960s. Romances took first place, the best known of this type being
Kerem and Asli, the Crystal Pavilion, Emrah and Selvi, Arzu and
Kamber, Elif and Mahmut, Meleksah and Güllühanim, Tahir
and Zühre, Hursit and Mahmihri, Asuman and Zeycan, Yusuf and
Züleyha, Ferhat and Sirin, Leylâ and Mecnun, Beybögrek
and Akkavakkizi, Dertli Hasan and Nazlihan, Yanik Ömer and
Güzel Zeynep, Sümmani and Senlik, Derdiyok and Zülfüsiyah,
Razinihan and Mahfirûz, Gül and Sitemkâr, and Dadaloglu
and the Türkmen Beauty.
Stories of legendary heroes and their adventures were next in popularity,
with the stories of Temmimdar, Sahmaran, the Forty Thieves, Seyfizülyezen,
Hançerli Hanim, the Seven Scholars, Behram Gûr, and
stories from A Thousand and One Nights. Then there were legendary
tales of war and battle such as Ejder Castle, the Battle of the
Three Roads, Castle of Blood, Berber Castle, Khyber Castle, the
Battle of the Seven Roads, the Battle of Yemen, the Battle of Billuruâzam,
the Battle of Bedir, and Nemrut Castle; epic tales of heroism about
the Caliph Ali, Muhammed Hanefi, Merdimeydan and Ebu Müslim;
the story of Adam and Eve, and the poetry and ballads of Yunus Emre,
Âsik Ömer, Pir Sultan Abdal, Karacaoglan, Âsik
Hasan, Sah Ismail, Köroglu, Âsik Ruhsatî, Âsik
Garip and Dertli Ud.
Humorous tales were another popular type, featuring Bektasi dervishes,
and such celebrated characters as Bekri Mustafa, Incili Çavus,
Nasreddin Hoca and Keloglan.
Books of dream interpretations, love poetry, samples of good letter
writing, and religious subjects such as the Ramazan prayer, the
Mevlit (nativity poem for Muhammed), and ritual forms of prayer
were all to be found in the bags and boxes of the pedlars.
* Necdet Sakaoglu is a writer
Articles
Index
|
